Invisible Jerkass

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"While most great powers come with great responsibilities, the power of invisibility isn't one of them. In fact, shirking responsibility is sort of the point of owning an invisibility suit in the first place."

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Characters who gain the power of invisibility have a startling tendency to become jerks, if not outright homicidal maniacs, within fairly short order. Sometimes this is a result of power that makes the character invisible but more often it seems to be a natural side effect of invisibility itself. After all, you can't be punished for your actions if nobody even knows you're there.

Such invisible people must beware of animals who rely more on scent and hearing than they do sight such as large implacable guard-dogs. Such creatures would still know, perfectly well, that somebody was there. In some works, over-confident invisibility has come to grief because of inconvenient rottweilers.

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Examples:

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Anime and Manga

Bleach has Guenael Lee aka Sternritter V - The Vanishing Point. Not only can he turn invisible, he can also erase people's memories of his existence. He enjoys screwing with people by popping in and out of their sight and memories several times in a row, then eventually stabbing them in the back with his knife.

Nobita from Doraemon when he exaggerates in using Doraemon's gadgets that make him invisible.

Lucy makes use of this in Fairy Tail. Though initially just looking for help undoing the invisibility magic on her, when she hears the guild joking about her behind her back she proceeds to make them all fight one another.

Sakurai Tomoki from Heaven's Lost Property does this in an early chapter/episode when he asks Ikaros to make him invisible. He then used his invisibility to sneak into the home of his friend Sohara while she was changing and "punished" her by groping her breasts.

Both words in this Trope (along with "pervert") describe Absalom from One Piece, along with the Trope itself. He uses his power to peep and molest Nami while she's in a bathhouse, and it's strongly implied he's done this before. Sanji is upset about that, though he also wanted that power, but only to ogle women.

If you believe that "Not Me" of The Family Circus is a real being, he might qualify as one.

Milo Manara's Butterscotch is a porn comic, so you can probably guess what the invisible man in it uses his power for. That's right, to watch a beautiful woman he's been in love with since they were children but was too shy to ever contact; and he gets quite indignant at the suggestion that he may abuse his power to peek at her in the shower or something like that; he just wants to be near her. His Secret Keeper, a woman named Honey (who keeps appearing in other Manara comics) calls him a "poor wimp" because "any real man who found out how to be invisible would have gone out and robbed a bank, layed all the most gorgeous chicks..." and eventually he ends up going nuts, stripping innocent women for no reason, and relaying his voyeuristic experiences. And then another invisible man shows up to rape Honey. Yeah, everyone is a complete jerk in that comic.

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Films — Live-Action

Spoofed in Amazon Women on the Moon in which the Son of the Invisible Man states that he's taken the invisibility potion despite that fact that it turned his father into a raving madman. He then proves this by running around with no clothes on, playing tricks on unimpressed patrons at his hotel, unaware that he's not invisible at all.

The film adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where the new Invisible Man (Rodney Skinner) is a thief who stole the invisibility formula solely to become a better thief. He's the most obvious suspect as The Mole, and is shown spying on the other members of the League. However, it turns out that he was spying to learn who the real mole is. He also has his moments of heroism toward the end of the film.note The novelization gives Skinner the same backstory as Griffin from the comic, which would make him a rapist on top of being a thief and a spy. However, this is absent from the theatrical cut of the film.

In The Republic by Plato, Glaucon tells a tale about Gyges, a shepherd of Lydia who found a ring who made its wearer invisible, and who used this power to seduce the queen, murder the king, and make himself king. Glaucon follows with a philosphical point that it did not matter whether Gyges was a just or unjust person when he found the ring, because nobody would continue to act justly if he had the option to act unjustly without fear of retribution or social stigma. In fact (Glaucon claims), if someone had the power to become invisible and would not use it to do something forbidden, people, though they might not admit so, would think that person to be an idiot.

That character, a solitary student of chemistry at the desperate winter of London- finishes recognizing that the invisible state privileges do not cover the drawbacks. He has to go barefoot and naked because an overcoat and boots rushed autonomous could disturb the entire city. A revolver in his transparent hand makes concealment impossible. Before being assimilated, so does the food swallowed by him. From dawn, his nominal eyelids cannot stop light, and he should get used to sleeping with open eyes. Useless is also take his ghostly arm over his eyes. On the street, traffic accidents always prefer him and he always lives in fear of being crushed. He has to flee London. He has to take refuge in wigs, in smoked spectacles, faked noses like those used in carnivals, in suspicious beards, in gloves, so they do not see that he is invisible. Discovered, he begins in a village inland a miserable reign of terror. He wounds, to inspire respect, a man. Then the sheriff organizes a pack of hounds to track him, cornered him near the station and kill him.

It' also slightly subverted: consigning he was willing to experiment on yowling cats and despised his landowner, Griffin was likely a prick from the start.

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man analyzes this in a different way. He isn't literally transparent; it's simply that as a black man no one cares about him. He even attacks a man at random, knowing that the only thing his target will remember will be his ethnicity.

when Gollum first acquired the Ring, he used it to sneak around his village, listening to secrets and stealing things.

Bilbo has elements of this in The Hobbit, once he gets the Ring, nicking food from the Elvenking and making a Running Gag out of sneaking past guards only to snark at them for not seeing him. His cheap trick at his birthday party in The Lord of the Rings counts too.

And of course in both instances the ring eventually turns its master into an utterly vile cave troll, or threatens to. Admittedly, this has more to do with the ring itself being Made of Evil than the invisibility power it grants, but symbolically it still fits the mold.

Averted in the obscure Swedish YA novel Trollstenen. The magic stone in the title has a failsafe spell on it that means it stops working if used for selfish ends. How it determines what is selfish is not revealed.

In Diana Wynne Jones's The Ogre Downstairs, one of the boys in a blended family turns himself invisible during an extremely tense period with his stepfather, and fairly shortly he goes over the line from angry to homicidal. The stepfather suggests that it's the effect of becoming "all thoughts."

In Harry Potter, Harry usually uses his Invisibility Cloak for good, for example, to sneak around Hogwarts and solve the current mystery. In the third book, however, he uses it to sneak into Hogsmeade village without permission, and at one point he decides to take revenge on Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle for their constant taunting, and throws mud and sticks and trips them while invisible. He's later chastised by Lupin for such behavior, claiming Harry's parents wouldn't want him "gambling their sacrifice for a bag of magic tricks". Which, since Harry was supposedly being pursued by a murderer at the time, makes his actions not only jerkish, but pretty stupid. Since his father used the cloak for stealing food from the kitchens, he wouldn't have room to talk.

Journey to Chaos: Invisibility spells make Eric more comfortable with expressing his inner trickster. Even if someone realized an invisible person was present, they would instead blame Tasio.

Episode "Gone" involves a Jerk Ass moments from Buffy herself. The point was that she had so much stress and depression going on at the time that she felt trapped and powerless. The invisibility let her get away with doing the things she wanted to do anyway, without having to take any responsibility for her actions—as Spike points out, she's pretending that she isn't really "there" as she does it.

There was the girl in "Out of Mind, Out of Sight," who became a psychopath after turning invisible. For her it was a case of Go Mad from the Isolation; everyone treated her like she was invisible so the Hellmouth made her invisible and thereby empowered her to get revenge on others.

Claude Rains (named for the actor who starred in The Invisible Man movie) on Heroes is an invisible Jerk Asswith a heart of gold, being rude and misanthropic, yet at the same time willing to mentor Peter Petrelli and unwilling to let Manhattan get nuked.

The main character from the Sci Fi Channel's TV series The Invisible Man had to deal with the nasty side effect that overusing his invisibility gland would trigger a homicidal rage. However, even under normal circumstances he wasn't especially scrupulous about how he used his invisibility, from spying on his co-workers to making his legs invisible so he could park in a disabled spot. Of course he was a thief even before he got his powers, so those are probably more his personality than anything.

Averted in the 1970s series of the same name starring David McCallum. The title character maintains his composure and sense of ethics throughout the show.

Mocked, as was everything else, in the Stargate SG-1 episode "200". In a flashback (not seen in the previous episodes), O'Neill becomes invisible due to an alien device. His subsequent pranks include leaving the room so that Carter is left talking to an empty chair, falling asleep and snoring in a room where Daniel is having a meeting, driving up to the base entrance and placing his dog behind the wheel to confuse the soldiers, and spying on Carter when she takes a shower.

In the "Wishing Well" episode of Supernatural, a boy wishes to become invisible so he can spy on women in the shower. It fails, due to the kid's lack of reflex and agility.

In The X-Files episode "Je Souhaite," a guy is talking to a genie about what he wants for his last wish, and it's pretty clear that he's going to be an invisible jerkass.

Anson Stokes: I wish that I could turn invisible... at will.

Jenn: You're kidding.

Anson Stokes: No, no. This is perfect. Yeah, I could have an advantage that nobody else on earth can have. I can, um, you know, spy and learn secret information, pick up stock tips.

Jenn: Sneak into a women's locker room.

Anson Stokes: Not just that, okay? I'm talking about James Bond type stuff. You know?

He's flattened by a truck in a crosswalk because the driver couldn't see him.

In The Twilight Zone (1985) episode "To See the Invisible Man", Mitchell Chaplin is punished by being given an implant that means others have to ignore him and act as if he was not there. He initially does things like walking into a women's change room. It's a punishment because he soon starts going crazy from loneliness due to nobody talking to him, and everybody ignores him when he gets hit by a car (he survives in agony).

Lampshaded in LazyTown, the "evil dude" uses a watch to make himself invisible & often kidnap Stephanie or Bill without getting caught.

Henry Danger: Brad in the aptly titled "Invisible Brad". Brad was made invisible years earlier as a bystander when a shot meant to make Captain Man invisible instead hit Brad. It is unknown whether Brad was a jerk before he became invisible, but Captain Man is annoyed that he came by. He tried to get Henry to quit after Captain Man agreed to make Brad his sidekick if Henry quits.

Zigzagged in an episode of Power Rangers Turbo where Bulk and Skull are turned invisible. While they do play some pranks on people and steal food, they also make money by entertaining with a magic show. (But also using their "skill" to discipline a heckler.) Of course, seeing as they had spent most of the season turned into monkeys, maybe they deserved to have a little fun.

Music

Clay Aiken's "Invisible" is explicit about how the singer would use the power of invisibility to stalk the person he is addressing.

Radio

Episode 178 of the radio show This American Life notes that in an informal survey, most people who would choose the power of invisibility over flight would use it to commit crimes or other mischief they think it would help them get away with. It also says that some people who choose flight may be lying because of this fact.

Stand-Up Comedy

Rowan Atkinson has a sketch where he is the victim of an invisible prankster, but eventually turns the tables on him. Done entirely in mime no less.

Video Games

In Team Fortress 2, we have the Spy, with an invisibility watch that he uses to get behind enemy lines and wreak havoc. This, combined with his ability to disguise as the enemy, and his insta-kill backstab makes for a very deadly combination. However, he's a jerkass even without the watch.

Reading some interoffice e-mail in Fallout: New Vegas reveals that this happened at the REPCONN test site, which accidentally received a shipment of Stealth Boys: "In light of yesterday's upsetting events all employees are hereby directed to give a thorough reading to REPCONN's sexual harassment and workplace behavior policies. Also, while it is not explicitly stated in the Employee Handbook, unauthorized use of military hardware against fellow employees is ground for immediate termination."

Wild Arms 4: One member of the villainous organization attacking the protagonists supposedly had the power of invisibility, but was executed by his commanding officer prior to the start of the game for abusing it. Given how said commanding officer is a pyscho it must have been a serious abuse.

While she obviously can't do this herself, Marina in Splatoon 2 mentions some perks of invisibility during the "Flight vs. Invisibility" Splatfest as "spy[ing] on others while they're...inking their Splat Zone" and "walk[ing] into a bank and...make sure the money's still there".

Web Animation

Homestar Runner: Strong Bad claims in one Strong Bad Email that, if he were invisible, he'd do the same sort of stuff he already does: Stealing snacks from Bubs, punching Homestar and eating junk food while watching TV. Being Strong Bad, his point is undermined in that of the activities listed, the last one is the only one we see Strong Bad doing with any frequency outside this cartoon.

Grif of Red vs. Blue is also already a Jerk Ass, so his greatest ambition involving invisibility is to take uninterruptable naps on a whim.

Web Original

Claudia from the SCP Foundation is a kleptomaniac woman who is permanently invisible like the classic Invisible Man. She's more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold than anything and is amicable enough with the Foundation personnel, but struggles with depression and a fiery temper due to trauma, abuse, and homelessness she went through after her powers manifested. She usually doesn't do anything too serious aside from the occasional pickpocketing or prank, though she also Really Gets Around and has used sex to get out of her containment room a few times.

A dark example from Batman: The Animated Series episode See No Evil. An ex-con steals invisibility fabric to rob people. He also uses it to see his daughter (who he is legally prohibited to contact) as her imaginary friend "Mojo", and later tries to kidnap her.

Danny has been known to use his invisibility/intangibility to spy in the girls' locker room, cheat at bowling/mini golf, and spy on Sam while she was on dates with a Hungarian exchange student.

Tucker briefly gained ghost powers and mostly used them to play pranks (pictured).

In one Donkey Kong Country episode had Diddy Kong becoming invisible thanks to the Crystal Coconut's power. He immediately uses his new invisibility to play pranks, most of which get blamed on DK, the only other ape to know what's going on.

Diddy:I'm having fun with everyone, when I disappear! Playing tricks on people while pretending I'm not there!

The Fairly OddParents!: Timmy Turner once wished to be invisible to avoid being beaten up, but then went on to scare everyone in the school. Episode 9 Season 2.

Peanuts: Downplayed with Charlie Brown in It's Magic, Charlie Brown. After being turned invisible, he doesn't like it all, feeling like a "lost soul" and constantly falling over because he can't see his feet. However, while he never truly becomes a "jerk", he does manage to sneak up on Lucy and kick the football once.

Mr. Cat was already a jerk, but in some episodes when he gets turned invisible he's even worse, and he does things like kick Kaeloo and hit Quack Quack with mallets while constantly moving so they can't get back at him.

One episode of Rugrats had Angelica covering herself in Vanishing Cream, thinking she'll be invisible. It only "works" because Drew is ignoring her at Didi's insistence. However, when Angelica can't get the cream off of her, she quickly changes her tune.

Spongebob Squarepants: SpongeBob and Patrick once bought invisible paint and made themselves invisible so that they could scare everybody else in Bikini Bottom.

In the Tom and Jerry cartoon "The Invisible Mouse", Jerry dipped himself in invisible ink and would then continue to torment Tom. But then again, what else is new? This plot was used twice more, in "The Vanishing Duck" and "Of Feline Bondage".

Miraculous Ladybug: Sabrina, when akumatized, turned permanently invisible. Until Ladybug and Chat Noir came on the scene, she used her powers to play tricks on Chloé, who was responsible for her akumatization in the first place.

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